Don't Know, Don't Wanna, and Don't Care
by Manchester
Summary: Next time, he'll just keep on walking instead of sticking out his thumb and hoping for a ride.


The red-haired young woman in the purple dress wondered when the guys would get back with their food from the diner. She was _so_ hungry!

Glancing around the dingy motel room, Daphne Blake disparagingly sniffed, momentarily diverted from her feelings of starvation by a serious dislike of the current location where the group known as 'Mystery, Inc.' was conducting their latest investigation. The Case of the Haunted Motel certainly wasn't taking place in palatial surroundings-

The toilet next door flushed, causing an embarrassed Daphne to edge away from where that sound had come from. The hitchhiker they'd picked up earlier tonight, who said his car had broken down, was clearly settling in. Which was a good thing, since he didn't have any choice, after finding out he also had to stay here until he picked up his car tomorrow from the repair shop.

Daphne looked down when she bumped against the side of the room table, where she and all the others had dumped their stuff until they needed it later. Something caught her eye, among Shaggy's contents of his baggy pants. There was a square, brownish cracker there, lying on the table. The famished young woman felt an actual rush of saliva in her mouth, until she mentally scolded herself over even considering eating a doggy biscuit!

On the other hand, Shaggy probably ate a Scooby Snack for every one he fed to their Great Dane mascot, and that bearded beatnik had never shown any signs of ill effects over consuming these treats. Bodily, that is. Daphne had serious doubts over that guy's sanity, but surely just _one_ biscuit couldn't hurt?

Her stomach then joined in the argument with an enthusiastic growl, which settled it. Picking up the snack, Daphne looked around the room a bit furtively, and then she held the cracker under her nose to give it a cautious sniff. There was just the faintest odor of baked flour, so the young woman then shrugged and she started nibbling at the biscuit with her bright white teeth.

After a few moments, Daphne blinked at the taste in her mouth. It wasn't bad at all; in fact, it was pretty good. Tangy, spicy - kind of delicious, actually. Encouraged, the woman bit off a good-sized chunk, and she started crunching this flavorsome morsel in her mouth. Mmmmm, scrumptious! She'd have to think of a way to get more of these from Shaggy without actually revealing she'd tried this before.

Smiling happily, Daphne Blake continued eating the baked cracker whose main ingredient consisted of ultra-pure Maui Wowee marijuana lovingly tended before the narcotic plants were harvested, dried, ground up, and then cooked into the biscuits by Shaggy's Hawaiian uncle, who always sent his favorite nephew a case of his very own.

A few minutes later, in the motel room next door, Xander Harris, wearing nothing but his boxers, was looking through his suitcase for his spare bottle of shampoo. There certainly wasn't any in his room's shower. Frankly, he was surprised there had been a shower at all, since he'd been expecting, at best, a bucket with holes drilled at the bottom of the pail. This place was a dump.

No, it was a _creepy_ dump, beginning with the desk clerk, who perfectly resembled a zombie. Not to mention the ever-present sounds of rattling chains, the moans of doomed souls, and blasting television sets announcing, "Hi, my name is Cal Worthington, and this komodo dragon is my dog Spot!" Car ads like those were surely an indication that this place was cursed for eternity.

Plus, there were also those very weird people who'd brought him here to this motel. They seemed to be totally unaware of the effect that their garish van had upon others, even after their gaping audiences had read what had been painted on the sides of this absurd vehicle. There was also the fact that this quartet spoke in the most dated dialogue he'd ever heard, right out of the sixties. Most suspicious of all, Xander was sure the guy with the beard had kept shushing that goofy-looking dog.

Well, it didn't matter. Not a single fantastic, peculiar, outlandish thing was going to attract Xander Harris' attention the slightest for the rest of the summer. He. Was. On. Vacation. Before starting his road trip, the Sunnydale native had vowed to himself that for once in his life, he'd be just like the rest of the country, totally oblivious to what lurked in the dark. Travel guidebooks spoke of living like the natives to experience the best impressions of their environment, so the young man was going to totally ignore anything, _everything_, wacky and unusual in his presence. Yessirree, absolutely nothing was gonna spoil his-

Suddenly, the door of his motel room was then kicked down, crashing inwards to land on top of the room floor, while in the next moment, a young woman leapt onto this wood panel, crouching down there to balance on all fours, as this red-haired female sniffed the air, to now manically gaze around the room with her pinwheeling eyeballs for something else to eat.

Her brain's synapses blasting away at full-blown July 4th fireworks levels, someone whose only previous experience with drugs was an occasional aspirin now stared fixedly at what had just spun around, to then freeze in utter shock. White, roughly square with curving sides, bulging with delicious flavors inside its wrappings-

YES! It was the biggest, yummiest marshmallow she'd ever seen!

Several moments later, a very irritated Fred, over having to make a second trip to the diner when he'd learned Shaggy and Scooby had already devoured everything that had been bought at the diner the first time, even before they'd managed to get back to the motel, hastily slammed on the brakes of the Mystery Machine, nearly sending those two eating machines through the windshield of their van. From the back, where they'd been looking hungrily at the bags of food in Velma's lap, the beatnik and his dog grabbed hold of the passenger seat to keep from being hurled forward. This meant that all four people in the vehicle were now up front, to see right before them perhaps the most bizarre sight of their lives.

Their hitchhiker, lit up by the van's headlights to vividly show off that he wasn't wearing anything but his white underwear and also clutching his luggage in front of himself, was frantically running at his full speed down the street, just a few inches ahead of Daphne's snapping jaws, as that gorgeous young woman loped along on her hands and feet like a wolf, and with her beautiful face drawn back in a ravenous snarl to show every single sharp tooth.

The four people in the stopped van reacted in their usual manner.

Velma: "Jinkies!"

Shaggy: "Zoinks!"

Scooby-Doo: "Ruh-roh!"

Fred: "Gang, we've got to rescue Daphne!"

At that, the most practical of their group pointed out, "Fred, shouldn't we rescue HIM?"

Ignoring Velma, Fred stomped on the gas pedal, to make the Mystery Machine peel rubber as the vehicle shot forward to start pursuing the sprinting pair.

* * *

Epilogue:

The Case of the Haunted Motel turned out to be one of Mystery, Inc.'s few failures, since after having her stomach pumped at the local hospital, Daphne had adamantly refused to return to that inn. The others then having their own injuries patched up were more than willing to go along with that young woman suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

As for Xander himself, in the future he never, ever spoke to any of his Sunnydale comrades about what had happened to him in the motel, given that those absurd events had caused him to decide to head south instead of driving north, in the hopes of a shorter driving trip and less time having to sit down. Which had resulted in his car breaking down in Oxnard and a certain sojourn at the Fabulous Ladies Nightclub.

Fortunately, back then, before Xander had been forced to make his first appearance as a male stripper, he'd managed to fully heal up from the toothmarks on his butt.


End file.
